Big issues for Chargers: traffic, financing, open space

OCEANSIDE -- Solving traffic and parking issues, finding private
investors and replacing open space are the key hurdles to bringing
the Chargers to Oceanside, a team spokesman told the Oceanside
Rotarians at a luncheon meeting Friday.

Mark Fabiani, the Chargers' chief negotiator for a new stadium,
told about 50 local business men and women that none of the issues
will be easily solved, but that the NFL team is committed to
staying in San Diego County if a "win-win" deal can be inked.

"The owners of the Chargers, Alex and Dean Spanos, are
determined to do whatever it takes to keep the Chargers in San
Diego," said Fabiani, invited by the Rotarians to speak at their
weekly meeting at the El Camino Country Club. "If it can be done,
the owners of the Chargers will do it."

The Chargers want to leave aging Qualcomm Stadium in Mission
Valley within the next decade for a facility with luxury suites and
office space that could generate millions of dollars annually for
the team. The Chargers are looking for a city to provide land for a
stadium and surrounding commercial and residential development,
saying revenues from the surrounding developments would help pay
for an $800 million stadium.

The team has identified Oceanside, National City and Chula Vista
as possible sites for a new home.

In early January, the team started talking with Oceanside city
officials about developing a stadium on the current site of the
Center City Golf Course, a 70-plus-acre golf course also known as
Goat Hill because of its steep terrain.

Team officials have said the property's proximity to Interstate
5, rail and bus lines, and fans in North San Diego County and
Orange, Riverside and Los Angeles counties makes the site
attractive. Residents and city officials have said the stadium
could bring millions of dollars and national recognition to this
coastal city of 180,000 residents.

Residents living near the golf course -- ringed with homes,
businesses and parkland -- have said they are concerned a stadium
would bring a flood of traffic to Oceanside on event days.

Solving traffic problems is the first job for planners. If they
cannot figure out how to safely move 62,000 people in and out of
the area on game days, the deal dies right there, Fabiani told
Rotarians.

"If we can't find a way to make the traffic work, if we can't
keep cars out of the residential areas on game day, then we don't
deserve your vote," Fabiani said. The Chargers have said they would
consider improving and extending rail infrastructure to bring fans
to the stadium, and work with county bus and train companies to add
services.

Fabiani said later Friday that he had briefed the Spanos family
and transportation consultants on research showing 17,000 public
parking spaces in North County, the ability to add rail lines to
existing track systems, the state's plans to improve Interstate 5
through Oceanside.

"We were very encouraged by what we learned," he said. "17,000
-- that's a nice big number."

The next major hurdle is financing, Fabiani said. Stadiums are
typically financed by public tax dollars. However, the Chargers are
not seeking any taxpayer money, something Fabiani said has never
been done before.

Instead, they are seeking private investors to help build,
operate and maintain the stadium. The city would own the structure,
but the question of who owns the land is still undecided, Fabiani
said.

Fabiani ruled out the politically sensitive issue of taking land
through eminent-domain powers, saying the Chargers would negotiate
the purchase of any additional land around the golf course needed
for development.

Fabiani said the Chargers would be seeking a standard NFL
30-year lease without any special deals such as ticket
guarantees.

The third issue for the Chargers, Fabiani said, involves
replacing the golf course's publically-owned open space with other
public space elsewhere in the city. Fabiani said

Fabiani said the Chargers are "intrigued" by the idea of funding
development of a planned city-owned, 465-acre park known as "El
Corazon" in the heart of the city.

The Oceanside City Council approved plans for the park in 2005.
More than three-fourths of El Corazon will be set aside for
parkland and open space. Officials have said it would cost about
$55 million to create the proposed habitat, trails, lake,
bandstand, dozens of soccer, football, baseball and softball fields
and other park amenities.

Fabiani estimated the cost of resolving traffic and parking
issues at the National City site at about $400 million.

"That's a huge extra burden to put on a project that's being
funded privately," said Fabiani.

Research into issues in both Chula Vista and Oceanside is still
preliminary, Fabiani said, and too early to render an opinion.

Rebuilding Qualcomm Stadium or building a new stadium on the
Mission Valley site is "absolutely off the table," Fabiani said.
The Chargers have spent "four years and millions of dollars" trying
unsuccessfully to reach an agreement with San Diego city
officials.

"San Diego city government is increasingly dysfunctional,
chaotic and unable to perform even the most basic city functions,"
Fabiani said. "Nobody knows for sure now who's making
decisions."

The next steps for the Chargers and Oceanside, Fabiani said,
include more in-depth discussions of how and where rail lines could
be expanded, and what kinds of development might help the city
generate tax dollars.